Early humans first walked upright in TREES rather than on the ground, study claims

According to a new study, human ancestors began walking upright in trees instead of on the ground.

The long-held belief why we walk upright today — also known as bipedalism — is that our ancestors were forced to come down from trees and spend more time on land.

Because millions of years ago, shrinking tropical forests and expanding savannas meant primates had to adjust their movements to find food, it was thought.

But a new study disputes that argument — and suggests that our ancestors first began walking on two legs in the treetops.

According to a new study, human ancestors began walking upright in trees instead of on the ground. Pictured: An adult male chimpanzee walks upwards to maneuver through bendy branches in the Issa Valley savannah mosaic habitat

The long-held belief why we walk upright today – also known as bipedalism – is that our ancestors were forced to come down from trees and spend more time on land (artist’s impression)

A team from the University of Kent studied savannah chimpanzees in Issa, Tanzania for 15 months.

They discovered that the population actually spent more time upright walking in trees than walking on the ground.

The results, published in the journal Science Advances, also showed that the chimpanzees spent the same amount of time on two legs in dense and sparse vegetation.

When they compared the results to previous research on chimpanzees living in a forest, they discovered a close resemblance between their movements.

A team from the University of Kent studied savannah chimpanzees in Issa, Tanzania for 15 months. They discovered that the population actually spent more time upright walking in trees than walking on the ground

Author Alexander Piel said: “Long-held theories about the evolution of bipeds are difficult to probe, even given limited fossil evidence.

“However, the Issa chimpanzee community offers us a closely related ape that lives in a habitat very similar to where humans evolved millions of years ago.

“We studied the behavior of wild chimpanzees… and expected that they would spend more time on the ground and exhibit bipeds in open vegetation, such as forests, where they cannot easily move through the canopy.

“What we found was enormously surprising.

“Many of the traditional hypotheses about why we are bipedal today are based on the advantages that bipeds offered our ancestors – for example, the view over tall grass or the reduced solar radiation.

“However, the Issa chimpanzees did the opposite — more bipedalism in the trees.

“There are clear reasons why it is beneficial, such as reaching for fruit on higher branches.”

He added that walking upright on the floor may be a secondary driver of behavior development.

“That means we evolved to be bipedal in the trees, and then maybe it was catalyzed as the forests retreated and we lived almost exclusively in more open habitats,” he said.

If you liked this article

Humans and squid share the same ancestor and are both descendants of a worm-like creature that lived 518 million years ago

The oldest evidence of using fire to cook food dates back to 780,000 years ago when early humans cooked carp

Ancient cannibals were among the first Britons to arrive on the British coast from France 15,000 years ago